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Der einst mächtigste Mann im Musikgeschäft muss sich seit dem 5. Mai vor Gericht verantworten. Sean «Diddy» Combs werden in zahllosen Fällen Sexualdelikte vorgeworfen.

Der einst mächtigste Mann im Musikgeschäft muss sich seit dem 5. Mai vor Gericht verantworten. Sean «Diddy» Combs werden in zahllosen Fällen Sexualdelikte vorgeworfen.

In der Quali zum AFC-Cup trifft Bruneo auf Bhutan. Wer sich für das Turnier qualifiziert, dem winken Millionen. Doch ein Mega-Patzer vom Bhutan-Keeper könnte dem Team nun teuer zu stehen kommen.

In der Quali zum AFC-Cup trifft Bruneo auf Bhutan. Wer sich für das Turnier qualifiziert, dem winken Millionen. Doch ein Mega-Patzer vom Bhutan-Keeper könnte dem Team nun teuer zu stehen kommen.

Aus einer Auszeit kehrt Tamy Glauser mit neuem Look und innerer Veränderung zurück in die Schweiz. Nach vier Monaten spiritueller Reise in Sri Lanka entschied sich das Berner Model für eine Glatze als Symbol des Loslassens und des Neuanfangs.

Aus einer Auszeit kehrt Tamy Glauser mit neuem Look und innerer Veränderung zurück in die Schweiz. Nach vier Monaten spiritueller Reise in Sri Lanka entschied sich das Berner Model für eine Glatze als Symbol des Loslassens und des Neuanfangs.

Az Európai Bizottság folyósította Ukrajnának a világ hét legfejlettebb ipari országával (G7) közösen jóváhagyott mintegy 45 milliárd eurós pénzügyi hiteltámogatás ötödik, újabb egymilliárd eurós részletét - tájékoztatott a brüsszeli testület pénteken.

Schweizer verzichten zunehmend auf Reisen in die USA, selbst während der Hauptreisezeit im Sommer. Für alle, die trotzdem ins Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten wollen, locken jetzt günstige Angebote. Für so wenig Geld konnte man schon lange nicht mehr nach Amerika!

Iranian state-run media outlet Nour News reported 78 casualties and 329 injured earlier today.

Iranian state-run media outlet Nour News reported 78 casualties and 329 injured earlier today.

Marlen Reusser behauptet bei der Tour de France Femmes ihre Führung. Die Schweizerin kontrolliert das Rennen auf der Rekord-Etappe von 161,7 Kilometern bei 31 Grad und behält ihren Vier-Sekunden-Vorsprung auf Demi Vollering.

A recycling, biodigestion and composting complex is being installed next to the landfill of the Intermunicipal Consortium of the Middle Valley of the Itajaí River (Cimvi), to take advantage of all the solid waste from 19 municipalities in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
TIMBO / FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil , Jun 13 2025 (IPS)

In 2014, Santa Catarina became the first and only state free of open-air garbage dumps in Brazil. Now, 14 of its municipalities are seeking to also free themselves from landfills and make use of nearly all urban solid waste.

The Intermunicipal Consortium of the Middle Itajaí Valley (Cimvi) expects to process in recycling, biodigestion and composting more than 90% of the garbage, surpassing the 65% benchmark reached by the Nordic countries of Europe, emphasized its executive director, Fernando Tomaselli.“We have 36 landfills in the state, only three public, the rest are private and there is little interest in changing the system, because whoever dominates the landfill also dominates the garbage collection service”: Fernando Tomaselli.

“It is a utopia,” said the executive president of the Brazilian Association of Energy from Waste (Abren), Yuri Schmitke.

“The unrealistic goal compromises the project,” he warned. Several European countries, Japan and South Korea have already eliminated sanitary landfills – the areas for the final disposal of solid waste – but resort to incineration to generate energy with non-recyclable garbage, he added.

Cimvi rules out that alternative. Its goal is to expand recycling and the circular economy of waste to an unprecedented proportion. “Our obsession is to take advantage of everything, to prove that garbage does not exist,” said Tomaselli.

But recycling has limits. Europe, after many attempts and advances, covers 25 % of waste on average and 32 % in the exceptional case of Germany. In addition, 19% of the waste still goes to landfills, according to data from Abren, which had its sixth annual congress in Florianopolis, capital of Santa Catarina, on June 5 and 6.

Cimvi was created in 1998, with only five participating municipalities, to jointly manage several issues, but not yet garbage. It reached its current composition of 14 municipalities in 2017 after taking over the management of the sanitary landfill in 2016, previously in charge of the water and sewage authorities.

Its headquarters was installed in Timbo, a town of 46 099 people, according to the 2022 national census. The 14 municipalities had 283 594 residents that year, the most populous being Indaial, with 71 549.

Fernando Tomaselli, director of Cimvi, an intermunicipal initiative that promotes circular waste management in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Landfill and recycling

The landfill receives garbage from five other “partner” cities, in addition to the 14 in the consortium, with a total of between 5,000 and 7,000 tons per month. Environmental education campaigns in schools, businesses and the streets have gradually expanded selective waste collection.

Yellow sacks were popularized and disseminated where the population put recyclable waste which, collected by the municipalities, are taken to the Waste Assessment Center (CVR I) at the Cimvi headquarters, on the outskirts of Timbo.

“Today we recover 20 to 22% of recyclable waste, against a Brazilian average of 2%. We want to reach 27%,” Tomaselli told IPS.

“We receive an average of 60 tons a day, 24 hours a day, in three shifts, Monday to Monday,” said Rosane Valério, president of the Medio Vale Cooperative, hired to separate and send the waste to purchasing companies, at CVR I, where 87 recyclers are employed.

The cooperative has another unit to process waste from two other nearby cities, Ituporanga and Aurora, with a total of 33 300 people.

“Of the material received, we still discard 30% that comes mixed or dirty with food remains, sometimes blood that attracts mosquitoes, glass and other dangerous objects such as syringes and medicines, which generate major difficulties for recycling,” explained Valério.

A bench at the entrance of Cimvi’s headquarters, made of thermoplastic produced from waste that was previously considered non-recyclable and destined for landfills. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Thermoplastic

She regretted that “we do not know the origin, there is a lack of awareness of the population in the correct disposal”. In any case, half of that 30% of discarded waste can be used for the production of thermoplastic, a hard material like concrete, which is used to make benches for squares, sidewalks, pavements and walls.

The cooperative already operates a pilot plant, with experimental production that has not yet been sold externally. “The municipalities are the initial market for the thermoplastic plates, as well as for the compost from the composting,” says Tomaselli.

Abren’s president, Schmitke, is skeptical. The consortium municipalities have a limited, insufficient demand, and the population does not trust products made from garbage, he argued.

Jaqueline Wagenknetht and Maria Eduarda Pegoretti, Cimvi’s environmental education and communication advisors, promote environmental education in the so-called European Valley to improve selective garbage collection and promote tourism and sustainable living. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

But thermoplastic has been around for four decades and now there is equipment that facilitates its production at a high temperature, 160 degrees Celsius, and as an input, half of the plastic that is added to other waste, such as textiles, is enough, countered the director of Cimvi.

The use of local waste will take a leap forward with the inauguration of CVR II, which is expected in early 2026 and will use a large part of the organic waste for the production of biogas and biofertilizers. Another part will go to composting.

“The goal is to take advantage of 100% or 98%,” for which alternatives must be sought for waste, the “common garbage” for which there are still no ways to recycle, he said.

Cimvi headquarters, in the Sunflower Park, which combines ecotourism, sanitary landfill and urban waste utilization plants for biogas generation, recycling and composting. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Bottlenecks

One stumbling block is selective collection, which needs to be perfected. “In Milan, Italy, five types of garbage are separated at the source, be it food, plastics, paper, metals or glass. Here, it’s harder because everything is mixed together,” said Tomaselli.

That is why Cimvi gives priority to environmental education, through several campaigns such as “Vale reciclar”, and sustainable tourism, which highlights the beauties of the so-called European Valley, which includes other municipalities in addition to the 14 consortium members.

The Girasol Park was also created for this purpose, a tourist complex that includes the landfill, the Cimvi facilities and the surrounding forest, with trails for walks, said Jaqueline Wagenknetht, environmental education advisor.

Design and poetry contests among local students seek to promote the valley, which is called European because its population includes many immigrants, especially Germans, Italians and Poles.

The name Sunflower was chosen for the park because, in addition to its beauty, the flower symbolizes sustainability, as a source of oil and biofuel, the advisor explained.

Design of the future Sunflower Park, in which the green buildings, in the center, are intended for recycling and energy biodigestion. In the background on the left is the landfill already covered, able to receive solar energy panels. Credit: Courtesy of Cimvi

Cimvi benefits from the experiences of São Bento do Sul, a municipality of 83 277 people, 120 kilometers north of Timbo, which has a similar program that seeks to use up to 100% of the waste.

A process of dehydration of the organic part allows a better use of the waste, explained Jacó Phoren, consultant of the company 100lixo, which is involved in the project, during his speech at the Abren congress on June 6.

Fostering new companies that generate solutions for the waste industry is another focus of Cimvi, said Tomaselli.

In Curitibanos, a city 185 kilometers southwest of Timbo, with 40 045 people, the company Inventus Ambiental claims to have invented equipment that will facilitate the separation of garbage for better energy recovery or recycling, reducing the waste that makes landfills bigger.

Its pilot project will be inaugurated in a few months and is based on the use of 90-degree heat to treat organic material, informed Dirnei Ferri, director of the company.

Santa Catarina has already eliminated open dumps, although it is ignored if all of them have been cleaned up. Now it is a matter of “breaking the landfill trench”, said Tomaselli.

“We have 36 landfills in the state, only three public, the rest are private and there is little interest in changing the system, because whoever dominates the landfill also dominates the garbage collection service,” he concluded.

Nagyszabású drogellenes razziát hajtottak végre Losoncon és környékén. A „Fantom” fedőnevű akció keretében számos helyen tartottak házkutatást, négy személyt előzetes letartóztatásba helyeztek, összesen nyolc személyt gyanúsítottak meg.

Pourquoi les mannequins du Sud-Soudan, un pays luxuriant mais en proie à des troubles, sont recherchés par les plus grandes marques de mode du monde.

Sauber-Pilot Gabriel Bortoleto (20) fährt in Montreal als einer der sechs Rookies erstmals auf dem Inselkurs. «Ein Abenteuer, auf das ich mich freue», sagte der Brasilianer. Sein Abenteuer in Zürich ging zum Glück schon mal gut aus.

Andrea Kiewel wollte am kommenden Sonntag eigentlich ihr grosses «ZDF-Fernsehgarten»-Jubiläum feiern. Doch ob sie tatsächlich wie geplant live dabei sein kann, ist derzeit unklar – aufgrund der angespannten Lage in Israel ist eine Ausreise aktuell ungewiss.

Andrea Kiewel wollte am kommenden Sonntag eigentlich ihr grosses «ZDF-Fernsehgarten»-Jubiläum feiern. Doch ob sie tatsächlich wie geplant live dabei sein kann, ist derzeit unklar – aufgrund der angespannten Lage in Israel ist eine Ausreise aktuell ungewiss.

Le ministre du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Sécurité sociale, Fayçal Bentaleb, a présenté ce mercredi devant la Commission de la santé, des affaires […]

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La cistude, seule espèce de tortue indigène en Suisse, est en danger d’extinction. Le Canton de Fribourg va relâcher d’autres individus dans la réserve jusqu’en 2028.

L’Algérie a réagi avec une vive fermeté, ce vendredi 4 juin, à l’agression militaire israélienne menée dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi contre la […]

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